


Nothing In Return

by CarryOn_CarryOut



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Blood, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Demon Jesse McCree, M/M, Mentioned Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani, Minor Original Character(s), Mondatta is still dead, Non-Consensual Kissing, Revenge, Self-Sacrifice, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2019-11-07 02:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarryOn_CarryOut/pseuds/CarryOn_CarryOut
Summary: "When you want revenge, money, success, anything your heart desires, there is a small area in the city where one street corner is a crossroads where deals are made.On the corner of 2nd and Dumers Lane is where you'll find it.Would you be willing to handle more than you bargained for?-Jesse McCree"





	1. Coffee for a Bargain

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the tags are a little inaccurate, but they are close enough that I tagged as such instead of making a new tag. Tell me if this is not okay.
> 
> Also, as a Warning, the non-consensual kissing tag is there for a reason.
> 
> I am debating bumping up the rating, but who knows.

The cold wind was just inistent enough to cut through his subpar coat and disturb his hair slightly, but not inistent enough to affect the snowflakes, thick and wet. They fell downwards like bodies falling from high rise buildings, heavy and straight. Slush collected in long lines on the roadway, colored with road salt and grime. Tires picked up and flung it about, turning it darker and causing the streaks in the road. A plow had gone by a while ago and yet more was coming down.

Cars advanced along the road, and Hanzo did not know where they came from or where they went. His breath came as a heavy white curl from his lips like smoke against the dark evening air.

Down, down, down, came the snow. It had entirely covered the fairly untraveled sidewalk since Hanzo had arrived to his spot.

Hanzo’s dragons kept him warm enough, their static rumble keeping his temperature high enough for relative comfort. He was entirely certain that a normal man would be deeply regretting his decision to be outside. He briefly considered picking up his coffee to drink from it, but it had long since cooled.

Hanzo loved the cold and the snow, it woke up something in him and quieted his soul the same way that the sea did.

He had needed the quiet of winter day, however, now he was frozen in place at the sight of a strange being.

The strange man was propped up on a bench-like outcropping of a store window, yet he seemed to remain entirely unseen by anyone, even when Hanzo had quietly pointed him out to a customer exiting the coffeeshop.

The stranger strummed his oak guitar, those bare fingers dancing over the strings insistently, a dark, warm song in comparison to the cold, bright caress of winter around them. Christmas lights dangled on trees and in the windows of buildings, a reminder of how soon the holiday would arrive.

He had been there for nearly five minutes, stopping the rolling tune only to adjust a sticker that was peeling off of the body of the instrument, seeming impatient in body language.

If Hanzo was correct in his assumption that this was, in fact, a crossroads dealmaker, then it was most likely the one he had called for nearly a week ago.

He had been mostly relaxed and unworried in his observation of them.

Now, however, he was getting impatient and curious, which was a dangerous combination. Genji had proved that many times with his own past decisions, but Hanzo supposed he had to make his own mistakes now and then, just to even it out. At least that was what he told himself to keep his stomach from dropping with the  grim realization that he was about to sign away his soul.

The stranger didn’t seem malicious, which he supposed could just be part of the charm. However, it caused him to stare openly.

The man looked up from his guitar, seeming to be aware now of his curious gaze. He tilted his hat up to no longer rest over his eyes.

Hanzo nodded and he nodded back, his fingers coming to rest mute on the strings again.

He had brown hair, and wore a red draping piece of wool around his shoulders, dressed as if he was a cowboy in the wild west rather than a supernatural creature at a crossroads in the middle of a metropolitan area.

Hanzo opened his phone, keeping an eye on the being but not being too very concerned.

His coffee was cold and no longer appealing. When he stood to throw it out in a nearby trash can, he felt the cold bite at his lower back and legs. It gave his body a stiff and yet airy feeling.

A strum of the guitar rang out, dissonant and wrong. Hanzo looked up and to the stranger, aware that he was being baited into doing so, but too curious to stop himself.

He gestured for Hanzo to come over with a metallic looking hand.

Hanzo looked at his watch again and began to walk to the crosswalk.

The gentle strumming continued, quiet and unhurried. Hanzo was aware enough that he could be walking into a trap, he clenched the silver knife in his pocket.

At last, Hanzo stood in front of the stranger.

“Howdy.” His voice was a smokey timbre as his fingers stilled once more.

“Greetings,” Hanzo responded in kind, voice feeling thin yet grumbling, his hands remaining in his pockets. “I do not suppose that you have been playing for money this whole time?”

He laughed. “My hat is on my head, not upside-down.”

“A poor tactic if you are looking for any sort of compensation,” Hanzo said stiffly. “The music was quite nice, but it was faint from where I was.”

“Nobody’s supposed ta be able to see or hear me.” He gave a smile that had far too little honesty to it. “But I reckon you ain’t a nobody.”

Hanzo agreed, but he did so with a disinterested sounding hum. “That is true, I am not a nobody.”

“Take a load off stranger.” Limbs folded in to take up less space and the guitar got placed to the side more permanently.

“I would prefer to stand,” Hanzo countered, shifting his weight to keep himself warmer.

A still-burning cigar was placed between chapped lips, having been plucked from the flat surface of the alcove a moment before. “You’re gonna look like you’re talking to thin air, but suit yerself.”

Hanzo narrowed his eyes and the demon laughed.

“Promise I ain’t up to anything.”

“Why are you out here then, if it is not to play your music or create mischief?” Hanzo adjusted his scarf up to his nose.

His voice was tinted with humor when he next spoke. “Well, both of those sound like a mighty good time, but I was just responding to a call a certain someone made just over at that there corner.”

“Oh?” Hanzo acted too surprised for it to be genuine, snark resting on his tongue like a sickly film. “Someone nearby had need of a crossroad demon?”

A shiver rose up Hanzo’s spine when it flashed a roguish smile with pitch black eyes. Ice water filled his veins, drawing all the warmth from him.

“Somethin’ like that, I suppose, though he’s standing there talkin’ as if it ain’t him.”

Hanzo would have bristled at the accusation in the tone, had it been anyone else but a demon. Powerful things deserved at least a certain level of respect, Hanzo knew this.

“I would like to make a deal,” admitted Hanzo, stumbling to add. “If it is not too much trouble.”

McCree let out a little chuckle at his uncertainty. “Saw the drafted contract, real smart to write it up in advance of summoning me, most don’t.”

“My terms were agreeable?”

The formally black eyes had returned to brown. His gaze fell slightly as his brow furrowed and his face twisted slightly around his cigar.

“I’m okay with most of it, there’s just a few things I don’t understand.”

Hanzo slipped into the alcove and was hit by warmer air, his cheeks flushing. It wasn’t just Hanzo’s perception, as far as he could tell.

An appreciative whistle tinted with smoke left chapped lips, chasing the cigar that was removed to make room for the low noise. “A hundred and four.”

Hanzo swallowed slightly, remembering the long nights he had spent pouring over the list of the elders, his family, and supernatural creatures they employed for their greed.

“Yes.”

“You were pretty specific in listing out their crimes and the way you wanted them punished,” he grumbled, scratching at a bristly brown beard. “It’s an awful involved deal on my end.”

“Indeed it is,” said Hanzo. “I apologize if it is unreasonable.”

He pointed the offensive cigar at Hanzo. “You’re offering to sign away your soul, and I think you don’t fully understand what that means.”

“I suppose I do not,” Hanzo murmured, solemnly accepting the truth to it.

“I won't promise that the after party would be pretty,” he warned, ashing the cigar out onto the street. “Hellfire ain't something you'd get used to.”

Hanzo was surprised, partially, to find that the dealmaker was attempting to talk him out of their deal.

The snow still fell, and the coffee shop across the street started closing up for the night, one of the staff members flipping over the small placard at the door to “ _Sorry, but we're closed_.”

McCree kept quiet, as if waiting for him to think on it.

Hanzo would have loved to had been reborn without the burdens of a having fled a criminal empire resting on his shoulders.

He would have loved to not need sign up for eternal damnation.

“I do not know of any other way for me to achieve this.”

It was true.

It was true and it felt like a sucking chest wound and an admittance of inadequacy.

The demon nodded sagely. “I get that these are bad people- I looked into them- why do you want them dead?”

“They are awful, vile creatures,” Hanzo said, but not with the hiss of anger, but instead with numb apathy. “They wanted me to kill my brother, they have done even more awful acts before that.”

He kept to himself the unspoken truth that he had nearly killed Genji.

“Damn cruel of them.”

Hanzo coughed, thinking of his brother, safe in their apartment, far away from Hanzo's terrible mistake here and now. “Yes.”

“You still sure?” It asked. “You’d give anything in order for those people to die?”

“As the contract says, you may not purposefully harm my brother or my friends directly or indirectly,” Hanzo reminded. “But I would give what I outlined in the contract.”

“It’s a deal.”

Hanzo blinked at the demon, and then all at once his hands were being crushed in grueling grip and his mouth was assaulted by slightly chapped, burning lips, tasting of cigar smoke. He closed his eyes tightly, fighting his instincts to struggle. Their beards scratched together. He couldn't tell if the kiss was smoothed by chapstick or by sin.

It was a rough kiss, taking, taking what Hanzo never thought he could give of himself.

He supposed that this was a bit of what dying felt like. Hot. Cold. Uncomfortable all around. His every inch of skin across his arms and chest and legs was being prodded by thousands of needles. Those needle sensations extracting his very being.

Then, all at once- like a door slamming shut- it stopped. He gasped, opening his eyes.

With nothing but a ratty guitar and his tingling lips, Hanzo was alone in the alcove. Hanzo, alone in the snow with no soul.


	2. Negotiable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo breathed out of his nose in broken amusement. He reached out to pause Genji's deliberately slow movements, spinning him around before wrapping his arms around him.
> 
> Hanzo pushed Genji's head so his forehead was against the top of his shoulder. Arms finally reached up and around his back in return.
> 
> A sniffle came out. “ _We would have been safe._ ”

The trek back to his home was filled with confusion, and the distinct feeling that he had gotten away fairly unscathed when he should have been left mangled. He felt oddly intact and conscious for someone no longer in possession of his own soul. He felt very little for having just finalized his own death sentence, he only wanted to see his brother for one last time, and perhaps take a shower to fix the chill that had begun to settle in his bones.

He would have thought that he had possibly imagined it, were it not for the guitar he stupidly trudged along with him... and the sensation of just having been kissed.

Upon opening the door to their apartment, Hanzo was greeted by Genji. His brother welcomed him in with a lazy wave from the couch, and then confusion upon seeing him prop the instrument upright by the door.

Zenyatta’s form hovered a few feet above the floor nearby Genji, it was natural to see him float seeing as he was a being of pure golden light. He tilted his head and folded his many, many, so many arms slowly into his criss-crossed lap. He could see the truth beneath Hanzo's surface, and his demeanor looked almost sad and resigned even past his emotionless mask. He chimed his comment in the small bell across the living room.

Genji looked at Zenyatta's form in horror, practically leaping from the couch in surprise directed at Hanzo. “ _You did not_.”

He remained silent, quickly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and if it would hide anything.

“ _Hanzo,_ ” Genji said, the tremble in it was achingly familiar.

“ _I did what I must_.”

“ _No_ ,” Genji breathed, beginning to tremble slightly.

“ _With every death, we regain our honor_.”

“ _You are an idiot!_ ” Genji wailed in fury. One of Zenyatta's translucent hands came silently to rest upon his brother's shoulder.

Damningly, Hanzo remained silent. There was no need to explain further what was already done, there was no way to amend the situation.

Genji's voice choked a sob as he turned to their shrines for the Tekhartha spirits, one alight with magic and the other sitting as empty as Hanzo felt. “ _We would have been fine._ ”

Hanzo turned and marched towards his room, feeling somehow so full of grief and guilt, yet so exhausted that he felt nothing for storming off. The prickle of tears would not come, no matter how much he willed it.

When he opened his door to his room, there he found… nothing. For whatever reason he was expecting the demon to show up, for something else to mock him, or for his brother to start calling after him from down the hall.

Peeling his winter clothes off finally, he realized he had walked all the way into his room with salt and ice covered boots, an unfortunate mistake. He would clean later… perhaps if there was enough time.

He pulled his boots off and placed them into one of his sinks. He shrugged off his snow drenched coat and shook a few drops of water onto the floor accidentally before gritting his teeth and going to ball it up into his other sink.

He stopped when he remembered the sheathed silver blade he had in his pocket. He pulled it out and a business card came tumbling out as well. He turned it face down onto the counter, unwilling to even bother looking at it. He knew was not in his pocket prior to making the deal.

The hot water of the shower melted some of his stress and grief back to a manageable level quicker than he had expected but an anger settled in their place. An anger bloomed towards himself, towards the Shimada clan, towards the demon he had made a deal with.

He scratched his scalp, nearly groaning at how relieving it felt. If this was his last night, his last minutes, he was going to make them the best he could, just to be human before he was spirited away to some awful place.

Toweling off, he left his life-shattering choice in the remnants scattered around their apartment. He slid into pajamas, and then mindlessly into bed, before he remembered that he had not said anything to Genji and that their last conversation could very well be an argument.

He slid back out of bed quickly, not meeting his own eyes in the hallway mirror, afraid of what might be seen there.

He found Genji meditating with smudged tear tracks down his face. Zenyatta hummed from inside the Shimbali bell on his shrine next the dark and quiet shrine of his late brother, Mondatta. The noise of Zenyatta's chiming was soft, so sweet, causing Genji to look up with what was nearly a smile.

Hanzo hadn't heard Zenyatta speak true words in longer than a year. He assumed that the messages he gave Genji were enrapturing because of how Genji's attention could, at any time, focus in on it from all the way across the apartment, heading swiftly to the prayer mats to listen to the quiet bells.

He fell into seiza next to his brother, listening for but not truly able to hear the lullabye words Zenyatta put out. The bell stopped humming and he felt grateful for the momentary silence they slipped into, both clad casually and reveling in the sense of peace he gave off.

Genji cleared his throat thickly.

“ _I would be very saddened to see you leave me_ ,” he murmured. “ _For as much as I am angry at you, I would miss you twice as much_.”

Hanzo turned, shuffled back and bowed forwards toward Genji, his head touching the ground. “ _I have made a grave mistake- please forgive me._ ”

Genji rubbed his hand along his shoulder blades. To Hanzo, the two of them still felt a little broken together, a little strange to be sitting with each other after everything that had transpired. Genji's hands pulsed the energy of the Iris, so vast and all encompassing. He half wanted to shy away, but the half of the energy that was not feather-fragile felt securing in a strange way.

“ _How long do you have left_?”

Hanzo did not look up, his eyes beginning to fog with uneven evidence of tears. “ _I do not know_.”

“Let’s bake a cake,” Genji said in English, slapping his own thighs before standing.

Hanzolooked up at him, blinking away his tears in confusion but already beginning to stand.

Genji sorted through a kitchen drawer for a knife, deeming one good enough and setting it on the counter. “ _You are going to cut the strawberries._ ”

“ _Are you not angry with me_?” Hanzo asked, his feet stuck in place once he made it to the kitchen.

“ _I am worried for you_.” Genji pulled out bowls, eyes cast downwards, an attempted look of distracted ease, but not quite right. “ _Who knows when you will next have cake_?”

Hanzo breathed out of his nose in broken amusement. He reached out to pause Genji's deliberately slow movements, spinning him around before wrapping his arms around him.

Hanzo pushed Genji's head so his forehead was against the top of his shoulder.Arms finally reached up and around his back in return.

A sniffle came out. “ _We would have been safe._ ”

“ _They wanted me to kill you_ ,” Hanzo reminded. “ _That is why we left Hanamura, and that is why I went through with the bargain- the assassins nearly got you last time_.”

Genji tried to pull his head up and back, but he pushed against it.

“ _I will not let them harm you_ ,” he promised. “ _Even at this expense_.”

He felt a soft jab to his stomach, Genji's eyes sad and a destroyed yet fond smile coming to his face. “ _You deserve to live more than they deserve to die_.”

“ _You deserve to be happy more than I deserve to live,_ ” he countered.

Genji’s fond smile faded immediately. “ _They do not exist separately, Brother_.”

“Uh-”

Genji startled. Hanzo's eyes snapped to the demon standing ten feet away.

He stepped and grabbed. He flung the knife at the man's face.

Unfortunately, the blade only imbedded in drywall.

“Okay-” McCree distractedly pulled the knife from the wall with his metal hand, placing it on the counter by himself- “the knife throwing was rude.”

“What the fuck?” Genji hissed, his grip on Hanzo's arm burning with unease.

“Why are you here, demon?” Hanzo asked at nearly the same time.

“I wanted to clarify that the contract doesn't currently have a set...” McCree trailed off.

He cleared his throat before breathing a sigh.

“I wanted to say ‘expiration date’ but then I realized it was a bad choice of words,” McCree went on “Anyways, you ain't dying- not anytime soon, at least.”

Genji melted with the good news, his hand coming away from Hanzo's shoulder to hang by his side.

“I thought I'd clear that up, I couldn't tell what y'all were talking about but-” McCree looked between him and his brother. “Figured it was your goodbyes.”

“You are the demon?” the words had seemed to bubble out of Genji.

McCree huffed around an unlit cigar. “Dealmaker.”

Hanzo tilted his head. “What is the difference?”

That caused a chuckle to burst from McCree. “I have an actual sense of style, and-”

He stopped talking abruptly, teeth clacking. McCree’s gaze turned cold and unreadable and his eyes became black.

“l just remembered that I don’t gotta tell you.” He adjusted his red wool around his shoulders. “I’ll be on my way out.”

“Wait- stay for cake,” Genji said suddenly. “Me and my brother were just about to start making one.”

Hanzo was tempted to raise an eyebrow, but he knew better than to give away his confusion.

“That’s mighty kind of you-” McCree smiled warmly but with strain, his eyes turning back to brown with it- “but I think that he might try that knife trick again if I do.”

“I would not,” Hanzo argued, an equally strained look in return, but it was hardly a smile. “You had simply startled me, McCree.”

McCree dropped the edge of red fabric he had been considering, looking at Hanzo before shaking his head with a frown.

And then he was gone.

“Nice going, Anija,” Genji teased before switching to their native language again. “ _We could have gotten information out of him_.”

Hanzo pulled out their stand mixer and let the heavy object thump onto the counter. “What the fuck do you expect from me, Genji?”

He'd it louder and harsher than he had meant to, near screaming in the space of the kitchen.

Genji did not tense, and that was almost worst- the fact that he was schooling his expression around Hanzo. His brother was afraid of him, not for him, not with him. He turned away in order to not see how hurt Genji was and how badly he was trying to hide it. They were silent in their kitchen, even Zenyatta seemed to be holding his breath.

“ _What did McCree do to you?_ ”

The question was soft and caring, not accusing. It was all too much. Hanzo looked up from the counter, pulled both of his hands off of where they had held the edge in a white knuckle grip.

“ _I do not wish to talk about it_.”

Genji leveled him with a firm look. “ _What did McCree do to you?”_

“ _Stop this_ ,” Hanzo pleaded, his eyes looking anywhere but at Genji.

“ _Why are you so embarrassed_?”

“He did something!” Hanzo snapped, stressing the third word like it was a curse. “He did something and I do not wish to talk about it, okay?”

Genji nodded, clearly not going to drop the subject.

They worked in silence while making the cake. Time seemed to stretch on infinitely and then suddenly it collapsed back in on itself once he had finished putting the pan in the oven. Genji offered him a small and cunning grin. Hanzo knew the look and dreaded what would next come out of his mouth.

“On a scale of ‘Dead Fish’ to 'Oh My’ how was the kiss?” Genji teased.

Hanzo sighed. “ _You are too intelligent for your own good_.”

“ _You forget that I was the one to originally find the information about how to make the deal_ ,” Genji said before licking a whisk covered in batter.

“ _That is disgusting_ ,” Hanzo said before groaning in defeat, “ _He tasted like smoke and it felt bad_.”

Genji murmured pensively, “ _so that is how it is_.”

The air was still filled with tension, though not at pronounced. His death was farther off, not as concerning, not right then. They ate cake, and Genji smiled so brightly at the compliment to his cooking before his smile faltered again with sadness. “ _You mean so much to me, Brother_.”

\--

He'd knew he was well and thoroughly fucked after he had left the brother's apartment in a hurry. He always was a sucker for pretty faces and tired sighs, and maybe if he was more like himself he'd have more restraint- or less of it. Maybe he should have insisted that Hanzo backed out of the deal. He could have refused to complete it. Instead he left the payment vague but within the contract’s parameters and let himself have a moral dilemma over what to take. He chuckled to himself before tipping his glass to let the bourbon slide down his throat. “I’m a fucking joke, having a crisis over doing my goddamn job.”

Hanzo had been gorgeous as all get out, up until his eyes were scalding hot and more dangerous than anything else he had encountered. It sent a unpleasant shiver up his spine in the moment. It was odd to feel anything strongly these days, so even that unpleasant feeling had been welcomed. The memory of the glare now warmed him in a weird way when he remembered it. To have all of that attention and power focused on him was exhilarating. That weird vibrancy that'd been required to be pinned down with a look had settled in his bones.

Jesse knew he had a shit sense of timing but with the way those eyes had followed him he knew that Hanzo's knife throw hadn't just been a knee-jerk reaction.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say that Jesse had become infatuated at first sight. He didn't even remember what infatuation felt like, in all honesty.

The only thing he felt for Hanzo was respect since he'd read the contract the first time. He'd never known someone to write something so terribly human and desperate within the cold and lawyer-like lines of a hitlist. That was something Jesse didn't see a lot in his business, people who weren't twisted and cruel themselves. People who were smart but still human, even when exacting vigilante justice.

Jesse hadn't had anyone exacting justice come to him for help in a long time. His mind reminded him of kind-hearted Lúcio but he dismissed the thought as coldly as it had come sliding into his head. Symmetra had dealt with him mostly, not himself.

As he eyed the contract, he thought again that Hanzo was incredibly thorough. Jesse respected that- but Hanzo was also such a good brother and friend, making it clear with no uncertainties that he was not allowed to harm the people he loved.

He wouldn't have anyways, the analytical part of him reminded. No benefit to it.  In the past he would have maybe found the thoughtful writing endearing. If endearing meant it had taken him three days to read and understand the contract, and two more to memorize it- yet he still looked at it frequently.

“Why does he gotta be so damn pretty?” he asked his bottle in a fabrication of frustration. He kept acting like ‘himself’. He could not help it. He turned to his wall and set his glass down. Potential deals were suspended there by a projector.

His apartment was so empty, his furniture bland and Ikea. He didn't have the soul to decorate it up all nice, it'd never satisfy him anyway.

“Why does he gotta be so damn mean?” He grumbled to the empty space.

“What if I only take a bit?” he wondered as he stood, his mind already backpedaling to something that'd be more moral- “but then he'd be like me, he don't deserve none of this.”

He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture left over. “Okay, what if I…”

How could he make it better? It was the kiss to seal the deal that had upset Hanzo, was it not? Would the anger ease if he apologized? Was it when he turned up to tell Hanzo that he wasn't gonna die? He'd interrupted him and his brother- that'd pissed him off.

What the fuck was Jesse supposed to do or feel about all of this? He was no longer as present as he used to be, no longer as human. His smiled calculated, his presence a replica of a man that'd given up himself years ago. But he wasn't heartless- he wasn't.

“I’m so damn tired all the time- and if I took from him to make myself feel better then I'd be an asshole,” he complained as he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

He huffed. “And I can't just end his life and just take what I need- else the rest of him leftover after won't make it to anywhere good.”

He let out a calculated low keen of frustration as he poured himself another glass. That had made him feel something: a spark of guilt rose.

“Goddamnit.” He tossed the drink back as quickly as he could. “I’ll think about the payment when I'm sober.”

\--

While he was cleaning the next day, Hanzo found the business card on his bathroom counter, a small sprawl written under a short and melodramatic blurb about being willing to receive more than he bargained for.

The loud drawl of “It’s high noon,” popped into Hanzo's head as he stared intently at the summoning symbol.

Six gunshots rang out. The voice of someone shouted something unintelligible. It stopped  with a choking sound, a large crunch, and a bang against something solid.

The sound of a struggling body and gurgling water filled Hanzo's bathroom next.

“You rang, darlin'?” the disembodied voice taunted.

Hanzo shook his head, looking to the door. He wasn't entirely certain if the noises were the supernatural version of a voicemail away message or if it was McCree actually talking to him.

“Ya press the symbol to summon,” McCree said, as if it was the most obvious thing. Cold and factual.

Hanzo opened his mouth but then closed it, his fingers twitching around the business card. It was the second option, more likely.

“Alright,” the dealmaker huffed. “Unless ya say something I'm assuming that you're in trouble.”

“I did not intend to... ” Hanzo found himself trailing off.

“Sorry that I'm busy!” McCree said, more polite and cheerfully harried than angry. Water very clearly kept being splashed as something died. “Do ya have need of me? I can be there in thirty seconds.”

“No,” Hanzo said, his tongue thick and unwieldy in his mouth. “My apologies.”

“Have a good day then,” the dealmaker said in a perfectly bright tone.

Something heavy hit the floor.


	3. Addendum

Hanzo supposed that perhaps he still had a soul after all. While stting across from the table from Genji and his friend, it didn't make sense to him why he felt so happy if he was missing one. The bells of the shrine chimed quietly and Genji stopped his signing to listen, Lúcio looked at the bells in mute confusion, hearing the chime but nothing else.

Like himself, Lúcio was unable to parse out the words that Zenyatta said, but that was because of... other reasons.

Hanzo could not imagine only being able to hear music, it would drive him mad, but music was not even a quarter as important to him as it was to Lúcio.

Genji snorted and went back to signing. Hanzo was too busy eating to pay it much mind, but he was watching their conversation with a smile, considering perhaps joining in a second.

“Howdy.”

Both he and Genji startled, muscles tensing. Hanzo clutched his butter knife both before and after he recognized the voice. Jesse McCree had snuck up on them again, standing off to one side of the kitchen.

Lúcio went still, one hand on the wheel of his wheelchair. He then looked up when the cowboy slowly moved closer and rapped his knuckles once on the table to get his attention.

Oddly considerate of Lúcio's impairment.

Hanzo let go of his knife and turned to smile at McCree insincerely.

Unsurprisingly, or perhaps surprisingly, his eyes were pitch black. His face blank, his body language stiff and otherworldly, moving far too calculatedly as he pulled Hanzo's cutlery away from him. No wasted movement, no wasted energy.

Lúcio pointed to himself, eyebrows drawn up in punctuation. "Are you here for me?" was the silent question of the hour- Hanzo even asking himself it. McCree tilted his hat up and shook his head dismissively, a pathetic excuse for a smile playing on his lips as if it was a reassurance instead of a postponement.

He was the embodiment of death. Death dressed like a cowboy. Hat and spurs and all. Death was terrifying in a way that Hanzo had not expected, his breath picking up without his say-so as he stared at the blank eyes reflecting like obsidian in his kitchen.

Face falling to neutral, McCree turned to him, the words on his slightly crooked teeth were a gruff command of, “Let’s go.”

A large, oppressively warm hand came down on his shoulder and he moved with it, standing up. His mind swam in the Maple syrup left on the table.

He had expected more time left to live, not a half finished breakfast. Not without a goodbye to his brother. McCree had said he had more time- He had lied to Hanzo and now- McCree walked him out of the room as Hanzo turned back and made eye contact with Genji. This would have to do as a farewell. He signed his statement quickly as he was practically shoved backwards out the door with a firm grip still on his shoulder.

Once they were past the threshold, they were crossing into a hotel room as if Hanzo's doorway had been between worlds.

A sniper rifle was set up on a low tripod stand near a window. McCree's hand came down off of his shoulder.

“You’d wanted this one done in person,” McCree said robotically.

Hanzo could not help the breath that escaped him all at once.

“You had frightened me,” Hanzo admitted, the strings of tension still tight inside of him.

McCree removed the unlit cigar from his mouth and placed it into an ashtray regardless of the fact it didn't need to be. His movements were slow and lethargic but still so empty. His eyes not seeming to be moving at all since they were disks of darkness.

“I already said you ain't dying yet.”

"That does not stop the terror I feel when you suddenly materialize behind me," Hanzo countered, oddly feeling like the more emotional one of the two.

He was unfamiliar with that, even Zenyatta, with his thick mask, showed more emotion than McCree did just then. Something was off about McCree, but then again, something was always off about the man.

Hanzo figured out that he wasn't going to get a response to his admittance, so he walked slowly to the window.

"Who is the target?"

"The woman who killed your mother," McCree responded, his eyes looking past him, entirely nonplussed despite the turmoil in Hanzo the statement caused.

He touched the sniper rifle tentatively, flinching slightly from the feel of cold metal before lowering himself to use it. "Who is she?"

"A hired gun, a tiny bit of changeling ancestry, former expert in subterfuge, retired and reformed now that she's gotten out of prison," McCree listed facts about her as if he was telling the weather. "Panennia Elkin, age seventy four, the sight is set to identify her and it should be on her already."

Hanzo looked through the sights, the gun zooming in and suggesting recommendations on adjustments to make.

McCree crouched down near him, his head tilting to the side slightly, watching impassively as Hanzo mechanically made the suggested adjustments. Panennia laughed silently. All Hanzo could hear was the rush of blood still in his ears and the distinct sound of his own hypocrisy whispering in his mind.

Panennia took a bite of the ice cream that was offered to her by her seven or so year old grandkid. A joyous scene. Hanzo took a sharp breath.

His finger moved away from the trigger.  
"I cannot."

He over looked to see McCree's face lighten into something more cheerful, just slightly. He pulled away from the rifle with a groan.

Regret flickered in his mind about being unable to kill his mother's killer.

McCree's face fell again, the fine muscles around his mouth and nose going still, eyes remaining completely black. "Do you want me to do it instead?”

"No!" He snapped, falling into seiza, but putting his hand out to stop McCree. "No, there is no need for her to die, please... do not harm her."

McCree's eyes turned into a perfectly human shade of both brown and relieved. The corners crinkled in a genuine smile.  
"Do you want to make an adjustment to the deal then?"

He looked to the side. "I suppose an addendum is in order."

"I'd have to kiss ya again," McCree muttered, his expression could be described as embarrassment. "Sorry."

It was almost like McCree was an entirely different person than the one that had taken him from the kitchen table this morning, less cold and more human. Hanzo nodded, standing at the same time.

McCree stood and stepped closer, his crooked smile relieved still and his eyes amused.

Hanzo's eyes moved about the room, unwilling to address why the change in his behavior was more terrifying. He looked at him then quickly looked elsewhere.

McCree took a slow half step forwards again before suddenly stopping, his face dropping in a hurt look. Somehow he got even further away, and further, and once Hanzo bumped into something he realized why.

He had backed himself into the wall.

McCree laughed thickly, something caught in the sound. "I get that you are rightly terrified of me- I still have to kiss you to make the revision."

"Just give me a moment," Hanzo requested, still looking anywhere but his face, anywhere else. "My adrenaline is... still immensely high currently."

McCree sat down on the corner of the hotel bed. "Take your time."

Hanzo schooled his breathing. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and responded to his brother's message about whether or not he was okay.

He looked up and saw that McCree was looking out the window with a small smile. He walked forwards towards the dealmaker and those brown eyes turned to him.

"I don't hurt her, and in exchange you don't hurt her either, separate in payment from the initial contract, this is free," McCree murmured as Hanzo got closer.

He nodded, glad for the fact that McCree was sitting, he was far less intimidating without his massive height. "It's a deal."

Hanzo leaned down and McCree reached up to drag him into the kiss by the back of his neck. Both closed their eyes, already aware and preparing for the fact that Hanzo wanted to pull away as soon as possible.

Something oddly mischievous came to his mind, however, and he pressed towards it.

Hanzo actually kissed back a little this time, which caused a surprised noise to be let out by McCree. It immediately went into his own mouth. Though he moved his lips far more passively and not with the same energy that McCree kissed him with, slowing the kiss down to something far less frantic.

Last time he had simply sat there, shocked. He could distinctly taste the somewhat fruity chapstick now.

The grip on the back of his neck was let go with a smile. McCree allowed his retreat, watched without any hurt in his eyes as Hanzo wiped the kiss away with the back of his hand.

"Thank you, darling," he said, like Hanzo had done him a favor. "I got mighty fucked up with the idea of killing her, I ain't a demon."

"I did not say you were one," Hanzo assured.

He watched as McCree began to take down the sniper rifle. Skilled movements with something more jovial and living to them now, rather than moving without wasting energy, rather than the cold monster he was earlier.

The question is off his tongue before he could think further through it. "No intended offense, McCree, but what is the difference?"

"It's percentages," McCree said as if it explained anything, still looking at his hands as he worked. "And I'm actually mortal- with an amazing sense of style to boot."

"Please," Hanzo pinched his nose before dropping the gesture immediately. "I just want to understand."

"Demons don't got any soul left," McCree muttered, tucking the pieces of the sniper rifle away. "I have exactly fifty percent of one left."

"When your eyes go black-"

"I don't feel anything emotion-wise when they get like that," he interrupted. "It's like a self defense mechanism, or it's a piece of me that's missing; I can't tell."

"So what-" Hanzo made a connection in thought from McCree's earlier statements as he was going to ask another question, quickly switching to the more pressing one. "You only need half of my soul?"

McCree laughed a little. "I ain't gonna discuss payment quite yet, I want to show you something first."

He let McCree put his big hand on his shoulder again, let himself be guided to the doorway and into another room that definitely did not make sense to be there. A doorway through space-time, he supposed, given that it was a dark scene past the threshold instead of what had seemed like afternoon in the hotel.

They were outside now, coming out of a door and into an alleyway.

"Pst, hey guapo," McCree whispered conspiratorially.

A man's peeked around the alley corner, a cigarette hanging from his lips dumbly. He had a cane with him.

"I definitely ain't threatening you- you know me- but would you like to have the rest of your days be without pain, Miguel?" offered McCree.

"What the fuck, Morrie?" the man asked, seemingly just as confused as Hanzo and more than a little amused.

McCree's eyes flashed black but his face maintained a dopey smile with his eyes half closed. His voice had turned up odd at the edges, like he was far more stupid than he really was, inebriated with something other than alcohol.

His behavior had changed so rapidly. Yet again.

"Man, trust me on this one, I know a guaranteed way to make sure of it," his voice lilted in a way uncharacteristic of him. "It only costs you zero point zero four percent of your soul, just a super small fraction."

"Fine, you know what," the man said, suddenly cocky and sticking out his hand. "I dunno what you're even on but I'll take that stupid fake deal- no one can promise shit like that."

McCree shook his hand before suddenly pulling Miguel in for a sloppy and biting kiss, drawing blood by the looks of it in the struggle, his hand a harsh fist in the hair on the back of Miguel's head.

Hanzo simply watched. The man's eyes flicked to his before falling on McCree's face again with immense panic, struggling even harder and screaming a broken word into the kiss.

He shoved McCree away and stumbled out of the alleyway in a rush.

"His fate, entirely unrelated to me or what just happened, is that he dies horrifically in a month," McCree said bitterly as he turned to Hanzo, pausing to spit Miguel's blood onto the pavement after.

"He's got chronic pain, hence the deal- ran cause I just gave him a vision of his death." Hanzo watched McCree lick his teeth with a matching grimace.

"Zero point zero four percent of his soul?" Hanzo asked, a little dumbstruck, unintentionally remembering the fear and the plea in Miguel's eyes for Hanzo to help him.

McCree slumped against the brick of the alleyway, spitting blood out. Yet again.

"He's a good kid, hasn't done anything wrong that'd get him eternal punishment." He slid to the ground, clutching his leg with a wince. "Fuck, that smarts something fierce, how'd he survive this while smiling?"

Hanzo had nothing to offer to help with the pain, so he said nothing.

He watched McCree pull out another cigar, having left his old one in the hotel. He lit it before speaking again. "Anyways, once the judges get to him, they'll send him to a nice place and the tiny piece I took will go back to him-"

McCree slumped a bit further, his voice thinning and emphasizing the last word with disgust, "Otherwise pieces like that get turned into primordial slop."

Hanzo looked on in dulled horror. "Why are you telling me this?"

"The half of my soul that is gone is gone for good," McCree continued, unaffected by Hanzo's worried tone. "It's slop."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"You stupidly made a deal with me that is open ended about payment," McCree warned, pointing his cigar at Hanzo.

Hanzo nodded.

Though McCree hadn't meant for it to happen, Hanzo felt his paradigm shifting until it was like tectonic plates, a large ridge of mental mountains forming between what he thought McCree was and what he slowly realizing he was not.

He had tried to talk Hanzo out of the deal on the simple stance that he didn't know what he was signing himself up for. He had been morally opposed to the idea of killing Panennia, so much so that his relief was palpable when Hanzo backed out. McCree had made a deal with a dying man, taking the pain for himself just because he was that selfless.

He was only half of what he should be and yet Hanzo found himself respecting it and amazed with how down right justice seeking he was.

"I can't take more than half of yours, it's physically impossible, which leaves the remainder of your soul up in the air," McCree went on, though Hanzo was hearing him as if through water. "Or, more importantly, still in you if I take any pre-mortem."

Hanzo's realization about McCree was coloring the words he spoke, even though they were gritted out and somewhat angry. Instead of responding he looked down the alleyway at where Miguel had dropped the cane.

"Which would put you in the exact same boat that I'm in now," McCree elaborated before taking a puff from his cigar.

"I just turned Miguel into a dealmaker til he dies in a month." McCree's eyes had turned black as he spoke. "I wouldn't wish this fate on anyone normally, but at least he won't hurt no more, and it won't be for long."

"Why are you telling me this?" Hanzo hissed for the third time, but he did not mean it in anger. Instead in exasperation that McCree could talk so much and yet say so little of what he meant.

Hanzo dropped down to fist his hands in McCree's shirt.

"Because unlike Miguel, the judge won't deem you worthy of having the bit you bartered returned, no offense- I think their system is bullshit anyhow," McCree explained around the fabric Hanzo was pulling up from his collar, black eyes yet again impassive and boring into Hanzo, somehow a dare rested in the slope of his false smile.

"The remainder of your soul will be left a tortured mess, and I'll have half of the very essence of your being floating around under my skin."

Hanzo felt a shiver run up his spine.

McCree sighed, eyes returning to brown. "Now you know the difference."

Hanzo felt brows pull together, releasing McCree's shirt and letting him fall back against the wall of the alleyway.

The change in his own thoughts had confused Hanzo's emotions, twisting them in his stomach along with the disgusting and involuntary heat that began residing there because McCree was now thumbing at his own lips. His cigar rested between metal fingers before taking a pull from it.

Damn him for being like this when he wasn't terrifying.

"You would not tell me about this unless there was an alternative path," he asserted, even though he truthfully did not know.

He stole McCree's cigar from his fingers, purposefully not thinking of chapped lips or how earlier he had kissed back though it wasn't needed.

McCree blew his mouthful of thick, sweet smoke in Hanzo's face, his irises blown wide. "That's where you're wrong, sweetheart."

Hanzo took a slow pull of the cigar, placing it dismissively in McCree's mouth before standing.

He went to the end of the alleyway, intent on scooping up what was once Miguel's cane. The darkness of early morning was cold and not at all welcoming. Hanzo had just been eating breakfast, so they were... somewhere across the world. Without McCree he would be stranded and far away from Genji.

However he knew McCree would return him back to his brother shortly. His mind was bright despite the cloying fear he had brushed against several times within the past hour.

He walked back to the dealmaker, having felt eyes trail after him down the alleyway.

He placed the cane down next to him, squatting. He harshly squeezed the knee that was hurting McCree, increasing the pressure after each second. He watched McCree's face contort from confusion into pain.

"Ow, fuck," he hissed, hands coming to swat Hanzo's hand away and failing. "Fuck you- stop that."

"There is another way," Hanzo repeated slowly and intently. "I can tell you know of one."

McCree's metal hand gripped his wrist cruelly, prying his hand from the knee. "You wanna know a fun fact?"

Hanzo blinked.

"Dealmakers are gifted with the ability to see someone's intent, darlin'," he said, painfully pulling Hanzo's wrist towards him, nearly forcing him off balance.

"You don't know shit, and you especially don't know shit about me."

"You are not the villain I had initially thought, yes," Hanzo relinquished, teetering on his heels, one knee coming to rest on the ground.

"And you're more of a naïve asshole than I'd thought," McCree bit out in a snarl, eyes glimmering with a desperate heat that wasn't fully anger. "I am not a good person and never have been, sugar, get that through your thick skull."

"I never said 'good'." Hanzo carefully thought about how McCree could see his intent. It wasn't a lie technically, Hanzo had never said the word good.

McCree laughed awkwardly, his cheeks reddening. He let go of his wrist suddenly and it caused Hanzo to fall forwards, his other knee crashing between McCree's legs. Dangerously close to having kneed him in an intensely sensitive place.

He stood. He slowly pressed McCree's injured knee with his foot in retaliation; the action pulled a string of curses out of the man before he released the pressure entirely.

McCree adjusted the cane to be longer before he stood with a groan, the hooked handle in his right hand.

"Do you need help?" Hanzo asked, standing close enough so that if McCree needed it he could lean on him.

"He kicks me while I'm down and then pretends he didn't," McCree growled to himself.

Hanzo laughed at the grumpy tone, still feeling as if he understood a few things better.

McCree pulled on his shirt. "C'mere."

Hanzo let himself be tugged. McCree's prosthetic then came to rest on his jaw. His eyes were gentle and amused.

Hanzo felt his heart rate quicken in nervousness, his right hand fell to cover McCree's on the cane. A small part of him was ready to knock the cane away, another equally small part was touch starved and waiting for something.

"We-" Hanzo stuttered, his breath thinning out and sticking in the back of his lungs. "There is no reason to kiss right now."

McCree smiled, slow and roguishly as he bullied Hanzo into backing up against the closed door.

"There was no real reason for you to respond to the kiss earlier, either, and now I'm returning the favor," McCree said, his voice low and suggestive. It involuntarily caused a curl of tension low in Hanzo's guts, trepidation mostly, with a small flicker of contentment.

That was all only a moment before McCree gracelessly gripped Hanzo's face with his large metal palm and pushed.

"You only kissed me today 'cause you were curious if you could get me all twitterpated," McCree huffed. "Good job by the way, I haven't had anyone surprise me in a while."

There was a smug smile in his voice, though Hanzo couldn't see around his remaining shock and the digits covering his face.

McCree pulled his hand off of Hanzo's face and replaced it with a chaste and patronizing peck to Hanzo's forehead.

He went still and stiff limbed, having truthfully not expected nor wanted it. "Why?"

McCree shrugged. "Proving something, I guess."

He gave a lazy salute, not to Hanzo, but to someone outside of his vision.

Hanzo looked over in terror to see his brother with a gaping mouth on their couch. The only other person around was Zenyatta floating nearby, with one of his many hands raised in surprise to where his mouth would be.

When he turned back, McCree was gone and so was any semblance of dignity.


	4. Contingency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you want more than you are getting, you make plans.

Because of the stress he was under and his own embarrassment, it chafed him with a brutal rawness when he realized with that there were so many more definitions of 'contingency' than he had first expected. The emotional turmoil was not helped when he realized that what he was planning to do with Hanzo Shimada managed to fit him into most of the definitions in one breath.

He rubbed along the pages of Sombra's well worn dictionary, the pad of his thumb dipping into a smoothly carved divot in the side.

He pulled his hand away. His face pulled itself into a sour pucker as he tried to memorize the meanings.

He tugged to loosen his tie and then unbutton the stiff collar of his suit with his other hand. The formal wear already bothering him. The blood was only slightly darkening the maroon jacket, however, it and the white shirt would need to be washed soon or thrown out. His wound had closed quickly enough with the help of a med pack, but it had been a close enough call to be uncomfortable.

He hadn't seen Hanzo in a month, carrying out his end of the bargain in as much silence as possible.

He would be the first to admit that he had embarrassed himself as well as Hanzo by pulling that little stunt with the forehead kiss.

He had absolutely no use to be thinking about the man as much as he still was- but that was why he was here, to ask Sombra about something so unbelievably stupid. Just to see if he could do it, if he could pull off a heist that big.

"You alright, asshole?" Sombra teased. He hoped she was just teasing, at least.

Her fingers clacked against the keys, typing some sort of thing. Probably about coding, it was her current fixation.

She side-eyed him finally, her face splitting with smirk as she inspected her nails. "I hadn't meant to absolutely wreck you just by asking you to find out what a word you said had meant."

Her office had always been a pitch black void except for where she collected her stuff in tall heaps. Her space was always limitless, and yet everything was kept cluttered around her computer desk. Said computer looked to be an outdated model from the 2000s but truthfully it was one of the most powerful computing devices in existence since she had been working on it.

Idiosyncrasies, contingent and excessive things.

"Sombra," his voice foreign and small to his own ears, embarrassed that she was making him ask. "How do I end a contract without taking any payment if I've left it vague, and I don't want a damn thing?"

Her eyebrows drew up in fake surprise. "You're... _with_ someone foolish enough to have made a deal with you?"

"It ain't like that and you know it." He shook his head, though he knew it was useless. "I just don't think it right to take anything from this one."

"It's your job," she reminded unhelpfully, her voice taking on an irritated edge. "I know you like playing hero because of your morals but really you have to stop your charity work."

He let a heavy sigh escape him.

"You've never taken anyone's soul with the intent to keep it," she accused.

It was right- he hadn't. He knew the system the judge followed, knew the way to keep himself in check. Knew which people were moral enough for Petras to revoke the payment. Knew how to avoid the ache that came with holding onto a piece of someone's soul only to drop it soon after.

Jesse kept quiet.

"Pendejo," she said under her breath before facing him. "You're going to wear yourself out, Petras isn't going to suddenly change their ways just because you're following your own sense of justice."

He didn't have to speak for her to know that he wasn't planning on stopping.

He'd gotten Lúcio a much lighter payment than what was typically appropriate for his world changing deal, practically making Symmetra work for free. Promising her choice pieces of dozens of beurocratic souls he would make deals with for her since her face was still too well known in those circles.

She preferred those other types of pieces for absorbing into herself, calm and collected ones instead of the chaos and color Lúcio's soul offered. He got off lightly with her odd choice and because of McCree's interference, he probably didn't even know that he was a (technically) a deal maker. Probably didn't miss too much of the sliver of himself that was gone and floating around in Jesse.

If Jesse could do more things like that deal with Symmetra and Lucio. If he could save the world and do right by his old self while doing so, he would do it until the end of the line. Even if he was exhausted and empty as he did it.

"I have the info on the locations for the seventy people that are left on your Shimada contract," she said as a way of distraction, looking over a copy of the deal he had made with Hanzo.

She waved her hand and a manilla folder appeared in her clutches. She offered it out to him.

She already knew just the same as he did that Hanzo wouldn't meet the standards of the judges. He knew that she knew. She knew everything, practically.

"How do you do it Sombra?" he asked, still feeling so small.

"How do I do what?" she asked, a smirk on her face.

"You know what I mean, Som." He closed his eyes. "How do you not want to give up?"

Her bargain had been access to nearly limitless information.

Any information, baring information of the future. All of anything she ever wanted to know would be shown to her as soon as she wanted to know it. Her payment had been her mortality and being restricted to this job. Dead to humanity, she was a glorified secretary with godlike powers.

She was fine with it, and yet he had no clue how she could live with herself. She was the same woman she had always been for as long as he had known her- she still had her _soul_ for fucks sake. As bright purple as her hair, running along the little metal and plastic pieces in her scalp.

"I'm okay," she said, a little tired sounding, a little untruthful as always. "I don't feel like I'm missing anything, though I wish people would visit more without wanting something from me."

She smiled before lifting a can of energy drink to her lips even though it did nothing for her. "I could always use more friends, even if you'll die someday soon, my darling deal maker; I get lonely here, amigo."

"I'm sorry."

It was almost peaceful, how nothing was expected of him here. He didn't even really have to talk, but it was no true comfort. For him to have thought that he could fix this shitshow, to have bothered Sombra again with his own worries, he was an idiot-

"No, you aren't, you never are," she said distractedly, though she didn't need to, Jesse felt his apology had been shit.

Confusion flared when he figured out that she might have been looking at his thoughts.

"It comes with the job, working with a bunch of self-serving assholes and self-appointed saints..." she sipped at her drink. "At least you're better than most I meet, amigo."

The blackness around him reflected in his own eyes. His maroon suit and the purple Sombra surrounded herself with seemed to be the only colors in the void. The clacking of Sombra's keyboard rang out, a rhythmic beat. An old pizza box sat on a stack of boxes full of useless papers next to an analogue clock that kept ticking forwards.

She didn't need any of it, not even the computer. Idiosyncrasies, contingent. Keeps her sane at least.

His knee was no longer hurting him now that the day of Miguel's death had passed, so he no longer needed the cane. He huffed into the still air. Sombra's lights along her keyboard pulsed purple as she typed.

”Do you know how I would be able to fix this without taking his soul?" he asked, staring out the gaping void of her office, stumbling to add, "Has anyone succeeded in getting their soul back from the Wastelands?"

"For once-" she said with a excited smile- "For once, McCree, I have no clue; no one has done it before"

He smiled back though his heart fell like a heavy rock descending through water, slow and inevitable.

She wasn't even telling him the statistics. Which was likely a bad thing. Too complicated? Too many unknown factors in the future?

She didn't look at him.

"Given that it's you asking, I'm almost tempted to say it's possible for you to get it back, amigo-" she spun in her chair- "as long as you can outrun them with those _humongous_  legs of yours."

He wouldn't be able to. Anything like him going anywhere near that place meant that the Junkers would personally hunt and try to gut whatever they'd deemed a threat.

"Did you know that Fareeha broke her stupid soul-celibacy vow and tried to do some of the same pro bono shit that you typically do?" Sombra asked.

"No." He took the offered change in topic like it was a lifeline. "What happened?"

"She's an incredibly bad judge of character." Sombra smiled in a fond-yet-condescending manner. "So she's considering trading the piece she got away to someone else for free."

"All of that work she did just to give it away," she added while clanking her finger down on the enter key.

"Whoever came up with this system really should have made it so that we were able to see if people are good or not," Jesse complained, a familiar rant between him and Sombra.

"What was that bullcrap that you said to Hanzo?" She laughed. "Oh yeah, 'Dealmakers are gifted with the ability to see people's intent', what a riot."

He groaned. "Listen, okay-"

She cut him off with a cackle. "I know."

"I know you know, but," he grumbled, "I just..."

"You were uncomfortable with the topic and wanted him to stop asking," Sombra said dismissively as she pulled out a legal notebook and doodled a familiar little skull on it.

McCree opened his mouth to argue, to defend, for something, but she'd hit the nail on the head.

"You came to ask if it actually was possible because of that," she continued, still just as seemingly disinterested. "He had asked the question, opened the box, Pandora's box, _your_ box, if you will."

"Gross _and_  highly inaccurate, Som."

The sides of her mouth quirked up in a Cheshire grin. "You want to know the answer because _you like him_."

He huffed, sitting himself up on the edge of her desk before reaching to steal a slice of pizza from the box. "So what- are feelings illegal now?"

"Feelings for someone who's soul you are going to take?" she rethoricially asked, a smile marring her face. "I'd have to check."

He was too busy eating greasy and cold pizza to retort.

"You have a letter from Miguel already," she said, seeming a bit startled. He watched her wrist move in a fluid motion, plucking a letter out from literally nowhere. "Straight from the Place Of Good Rest itself."

He felt like a chastised child when he asked, "He upset?"

She shook her head, offering the summoned paper out to him. "It's really sweet and heartfelt, Morrie."

"Don't-" he growled. "Don't call me that."

"¿Qué?" she sneered. "It's just a name."

He hung his head. "Just put it away with the rest, I don't have the soul to look at them right now."

She didn't even chuckle at his stupid pun.

Sombra slid a drawer of her desk open, depositing the letter into the empty void of the inside.

He let the two of them fall into silence, knowing she was undoubtedly up to something as she typed.

"Have you heard the latest news about the Reaper trial?" she asked.

He shook his head. Torn between wanting to know what she knew and wanting to keep his distance from the damn beast, he stayed quiet.

His mind flashed to the Lovecraftian abomination before anything else now, but somehow it flickered to the fact that Gabriel had been a somewhat moral man.

Jesse had even sort of looked up to him, back when he was new and learning the ropes. That had been before Gabe began absorbing too many pieces of all sorts of people, before Jesse had any clue about what might happen.

A demon.

Reaper was a demon now because Petras had stripped him down to nothing.

He had gorged himself, absorbing more souls than what was right, than what should have been possible. The judges had painstakingly torn off each fragment he had stolen, piece by piece, and placed them in the Wastelands for safekeeping as he went through several years of trials for his transgressions.

Jesse no longer hoped too hard that the missing half of his soul will be returned.

He now knew that the shitty system they follow deemed him unworthy because of his life before this. He knew that they weren't going to even consider it, just because.

He knew that ultimately, they wouldn't give a shit about him, though he was doing his job just fine.

In that moment, he couldn't help but be so fucking tired. Goddamn hypocrites.

"Since it's above my pay grade: go ask Orissa and the child about the future since you're gonna try getting it back," Sombra suggested flippantly, quickly adding, "Visit when you're in a better mood and when you just want to be around me."

He leaned down to let her 'boop' him on the nose, as she called it. Her smile became far more genuine as she reached up a gloved finger to press it to the top of his nose.

He left soon after, though something still felt off.

He slipped into the space between spaces. Everything was white, which would have hurt if it was actually in his eyes and not in his brain, and it always smelled exactly the way his childhood home had smelled like before he left it.

In comparison to Sombra's office, the home of Orissa the Seer and the child was warm and full of color. It was also on the same plane of existence as McDonalds and other fast food joints. Meaning that it was just in the regular world, the mortal realm. They ate so many kids meals because Efi was quite literally, eternally a child.

They were ageless and would never die of age but not immortal. They resided in this decade as a girl and her blind Great Dane, unafraid of any cruelties or famine because Efi could see the future to prevent harm from coming to them.

"Howdy," he greeted as he entered, and Orissa's milky gaze was already on him as she lifted her large gray head from Efi's lap.

The child ran up to him, unashamed in her joy at seeing him. "Hello McCree!"

"Hello Miss Efi." He smiled. "Greetings, Miss Orissa."

"I like your suit!" Efi complimented, her own outfit draped in a way that reminded him of a little princess. Cutesy, but functional for all of her engineering. A smudge of some kind of soot was on her cheek.

"Thank you," he mumbled, again distinctly aware of how uncomfortable he was in it, the blood on his side drying tacky and stiff. "I'm sorry that it ain't clean."

"Your apologies and thanks are appreciated," Orissa assured, her voice Echo-y and entirely unnatural but still warm.

"Oh!" Efi pointed to the kitchen. "You are welcome to wash your suit in the sink if you want, there still will be a slight stain on the jacket however."

McCree sighed, running a hand through his hair.

The young girl bounced on the balls of her feet, hands behind her, glancing back to where she came from.

"Efi, please, I can tell you desire to go tinker with your new project," Orissa said, her tone motherly despite the fact that she was a lot younger than the child. "I will deliver the prophecy if you wish it."

Efi left and McCree felt the milky white eyes of Orissa lock onto him.

"It is possible," she began without further preamble. "You will hate how it it must be done, however."

His breath came out thinner than the transparent skin of Orissa's ears. "How?"

"You, Jesse McCree, cannot go into the Wastelands, as you will not return if you set even a foot beyond the border."

He nods, pulling out a notepad and a pen from his pocket.

Orissa helpfully waits until his pen has stopped.

"A fully intact soul could return successfully while ferrying the fragment of your soul," Orissa began. "In existence, there are only two people, who have all of their soul intact and are capable of the feats required for this task."

He nearly finishes writing the note when she next speaks.

"A normal person would not be able to complete this task, they would go insane as they approached the Wastelands." She stands and moves to sit before him. "They must be able to properly interact with the supernatural and the unfiltered energies that the Wasteland pumps out; a Shimada would be best."

"You're not telling me it's gotta be Genji or Hanzo?"

Orissa didn't move beyond the slow, easy breathing. A very small and Neanderthal like part of his brain wanted to reach out and pet her, but that would be rude.

"You are contractually obligated to not cause harm to Genji," she reminded. "So it must be your contractor."

He nodded.

"Complications will arise at the border," she explained, her body directed at him but her head turned to look elsewhere.

He continued to take notes as she spoke, his plan forming not by his own hand but by fate. It still would be exactly what he would do, given all of the available information.

"You both are the best."

"We only know things," Orrisa said vaguely. "Petras is foolish, and fails to adequately do their duties, we want to help."

"McCree, it's done!" Efi comes barrelling out of her lab, a jar as large as her torso held in her hands.

She does a little skid around the couch on one sock-clad foot that makes him anxious that she'll drop it before he remembers just how impossible it is.

She stands, her shoulders squared. "You have to make super duper extra sure that Hanzo knows that your soul is being kept in a silver cage with a red serape like yours on top of it, it's how the container Petras put it in will look to him."

He reaches out and places a hand on her cheek. He kisses her forehead, then takes the jar from her, eyes swelling with relieved tears.

"Efi, darling, you are absolutely incredible." He clears his throat and thinks about how he'll have to find some way to repay her.

Her smile is wide and proud in only the way the child's smile will ever be.

"Skedaddle, cowboy!" she laughs, jumping up onto the couch.

 


End file.
